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Saturday, August 10, 2013

THE NEXT CHAPTER

The photos being displayed in this review are not mine, for all the photos are properties of 20th Century Fox

By:

G.P. Manalo

Starring:

Logan Lerman

Alexandra Daddario

Brandon T. Jackson

It seems that Hollywood is looking for that “next big thing” (by
next big thing I meant the next Harry Potter) when it comes to children/young
adult fiction-fantasy novels being adapted to the big screen as film producers
would scour bookstores to find something appealing for big studios to release
it to the public. Percy Jackson (surprisingly) continues to grace our screens
despite it being unsuccessfully acclaimed by both fans and critics though
embraced by a number of casual movie-goers. This new sequel, didn’t really
change my mind about the franchise and I’d rather read the book about it.

Percy
Jackson – The Sea of Monsters continues the adventures of three demigods, Percy Jackson,
Annabeth Chase and Grover. In this film, they set out their quest in retrieving
the long lost Golden Fleece at the
Sea of Monsters so that they can heal the tree that acts as a force field to
defend Camp Half-Blood. But they’re not alone in retrieving the Golden Fleece
when the son of Hermes, Luke returns to resurrect the titan, Cronos to unleash
his wrath in Olympus.

I was never a fan of the first Percy Jackson film (The Lightning Thief) though I do enjoy
reading the book series based on it even more as kids my age do. The first film
was pretty much a bad taste in my mouth (I was even bullied for hating the film
back in 6th Grade) as the film does come off to me as a bad Harry
Potter clone and a mediocre adaptation of a good book in general. This on the other hand, is not really as horrendous
as the first one though that is not saying much.

The film continues to suffer the same problems of the first film
did and it is that they don’t really do anything special with the formula that
we have seen before. They have all of the ideas being brought to the screen but
they don’t really hit the right notes, there wasn’t much depth or heart to each
element and they don’t really have that much of an impact that the film expects
us to have (but it really didn’t), that results to a rather bland and
uninteresting story (until the ending though, I’ll give them that). This film
is definitely for kids lower than 12, the humor is childish though it wasn’t
that forceful commercialistic type of humor like the last films had. Not to
mention the storytelling was very straight-forward and full of exaggerated and
cartoonish designs of the monsters (I swear that one monster reminded me a lot
of Scrappy Doo in that one bad live action Scooby Doo movie). As much as I want
to admire the simplicity of the straight-forward plot, there were most elements
that were very distracting and it did take me out of the film at some point.

Take these elements for example. In the film they show Percy is
having an easily misjudged half-brother and Percy is developing self-doubt on
himself for not really accomplishing his mission very well in the first film
due to the fact that he had help but they weren’t executed properly up to the
point where I didn’t really care that much for the problems he is facing. That
one element of self-doubt felt shoe-horned in to the film and it is easily
written out of the film. While the brother relationship that they keep showing
in this film wasn’t impactful as I have hoped it to be, the writing gave the
four characters less interaction compared to the last film; they barely felt
like they have a direct relationship to each other.

The action set pieces was barely the saving grace of the film, but
they were entertaining. The special effects are still a love-hate relationship
for me; there’d be shots of the film where it is believable that a giant
Cyclops was fighting five children in one room (which is probably the most
entertaining fight scene of the film though) though there’d be most shots where
the special effects looked barely ahead of its time. The special effects are worthy for some sort of TV movie or something for a straight to DVD film.

Almost half of the cast that were decent in the last film didn’t
show up while one of them got re-casted, while years have definitely passed,
the young actors are barely believable to even be called “children” in this
film. The performances weren’t also strong as well though it did have a few
considerations. I’ve always hated Logan Lerman since the first Percy Jackson, I
would shrug every time he is in a movie but after watching him in “Perks of
Being a Wallflower” there I knew that he does have potential to be one of the best actors of this generation, though here he was decent (he was so wooden in the last one) enough, nothing really special about his performance in this film but decent enough. The problem with
some of the performances in the film is that they were overly-serious with the
material, maybe it is the writing’s fault because they barely add life to most
of the characters and as a result most of the performances are wooden and
lifeless. As a man, I cannot deny the fact that Alexandra Daddario is nice to
look at. But her acting is just so wooden and overly-serious in this film.
She’s one of those characters that didn’t really connect very well with the
characters around her. Though, Brandon T. Jackson’s Grover and Stanley Tucci’s
Dionysus thankfully gave life to this movie through their characters and it is unfortunate they weren't in this movie a lot because they are the best parts of the film. Jake
Abel’s Luke was also woodenly dry in this film; I could’ve sworn that he looked drowsy every time he talks. Newcomers like Douglas Smith and Leven
Rambin’s Clarisse were just stereotypes to progress the film though they were
just decent for the material they were given.

In the end, Percy Jackson: The Sea of Monsters is a rather
mediocre attempt of a sequel. Despite its flaws, I was still able to enjoy
fragments of the film; most of the performances were enjoyable enough to keep
me going for another half of the film and there were a couple of action
sequences that were entertaining enough. I would recommend you see this if you
have a kid under 12, above 12 years old is a big gamble whether or not they
will or will not like this movie. Fans of the book would love or hate this movie, it really depends on how attached you are to the series.